Vintage Reproductions and Repair In Sonoma, California

Category: L-OO

Progress! Fingerboard is glued, fully fretted, neck is carved, and the body bound. Home stretch! Tomorrow I’ll level and dress the frets, and finish sand the whole deal. I’m excited to put the new Festool sander into action, and I’ll need to do some sunburst tests before I commit dye to spruce. This guitar will get a circa-1934 sunburst. Stay tuned!

The past few days, some celluloid inlay was cut and installed, the neck carefully set, and my new LMI Binding Routing machine arrived. LMI recently revamped their Binding Machine, and the timing coincided nicely with my needing one! The new model is very compact, the router moves smoothly on the vertical plane, and the new carriage grips the guitar very well. My only issue was that my new Bosch Colt router and Stew Mac router bit weren’t jiving that well together. I was able to get the job done fairly cleanly, but I’ll be looking to improve the setup in the future. Enjoy!

The end graft is layed out.

Also, in secret summer activities, I’ve acquired a new car project that needed a thrash to get going, but I’m happy to announce that it is on the road for the first time in possibly 40 years. It is a 1955 Desoto Firedome 2-door hardtop, with the original 291ci Hemi V8 and Powerflite transmission. It has 67k miles, and has been in one family since new.

I’ve overhauled the carburetor, the brakes, reworked the dual points (!), sent out the water pump and master cylinder/booster out for pro rebuilds, got new Coker Wide Whitewalls, and gave the whole car a going over. A buncha fun work. Now, time to enjoy the summertime!